


Save What We Love

by cookie_rock



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Moisture farming, POV Luke Skywalker, Post-Battle of Yavin, Post-Star Wars: A New Hope, Rebel Alliance, The Force, Yavin 4, luke is competent, the force isn't just for combat, uncle owen and aunt beru were good parents, you can take the boy off the farm but you'll never take the farm out of the boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22149055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookie_rock/pseuds/cookie_rock
Summary: Ever since he made the shot that destroyed the Death Star, he's been wondering, deep down, if death is all he's good for.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Save What We Love

Yavin IV is full of people complaining about the humidity: “ _ugh, I'm dripping_ ,” “ _I hate the jungle_ ,” “ _it's like standing in a 'fresher without getting clean_.” They never stop, and they don't seem to get why he doesn't feel the same way. Luke can't count the number of times he's tried to explain why he gets giddy when he sees rust, why he sometimes gets lost staring at the walls, marveling at the condensation gathering on the stone, not realizing that tears are also trailing down his face. Luke Skywalker? The hero? The _Jedi_? Crying at walls? 

It's not that he ever really cared about moisture farming (though you can't be raised in that life without it becoming part of you), it's just that he thinks about how Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru would have been overjoyed to see this, and he feels their death like a physical ache. But the Rebellion is full of people who've lost everything, and after the first wave of Alderaan refugees arrive (people lucky, or unlucky enough to have been off-planet when the unthinkable happened) he stops bringing up his own grief. People grin and elbow him when he gets a little misty about the beauty of a drop of water, and he laughs along, and laughing helps with the ache.

He's lost in the hallway again when he hears someone cursing up a storm in Huttese. He peeks around the door and is floored when he sees three people gathered around a moisture vaporator, arguing, while a red R2 unit beeps in confusion. “Where did you find that old thing?” Luke asks, delighted and surprised and curious. Heads turn to him, but he's focused on the vaporator—it's an old model, he realizes, and wasn't great even when it was new, and it looks like it hasn't been kept up well.

“Um,” says one of the rebels. 

“Sorry, Lieutenant Skywalker,” says another, “if anybody knows where this hunk of junk came from, they're not with us anymore.” 

“What's wrong with it?” Luke asks, crouching next to the R2 unit. 

“It doesn't work,” says the first rebel, and the droid launches into a monologue of beeps, but Luke isn't listening to them. This is a server room, full of computers, and it's so humid he can taste the water when he breathes—no wonder they're worried. It needs to be dry in here. He ignores the talk and runs his hands over the surface of the vaporator. Ever since he made the shot that destroyed the Death Star, he's been wondering, deep down, if death is all he's good for. So he closes his eyes. He reaches out with his feelings, as Obi-Wan taught him, and with 19 years of the knowledge and experience that Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru gave to him, and the rest of the planet fades away.

“I need a spanner,” he says. “And R2-D2, please.”

Several hours of work later he's looking at a vaporator that probably hasn't worked this well since it was first built. R2 whistles a compliment for them both and Luke gives him a fond smile. “Yeah, buddy,” he replies. “We did good.”


End file.
